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TOPICS
Planting
Maintenance
Winter Bouquets
Poinsettia Care
Rain, frost and possibly
temperatures to 70 degrees make January a variable month. Normally, frosts are
fairly light in coastal areas of Humboldt County, but about every ten years
there is a big freeze that takes a heavy toll of subtropical plants.
If Humboldt County's January weather keeps you indoors, you can take the
opportunity to do a little armchair gardening. It's a pleasant time to sit by
the fire with your seed and nursery catalogs to dream, plan, and order. Try a
few new plants this year.
If the sun does shine and temperatures rise a bit, there's plenty you can do
outside to get a head start on spring. This is the time to prune, weed,
fertilize, plant bare-root trees, shrubs, berries, and even some vegetables.
Shop for flowering evergreens: azaleas, camellias, pieris, and early
rhododendrons. As a tempting foretaste of blossoms to come, cut branches of
flowering almond, flowering quince, winter jasmine and forsythia to force
their flowers indoors.
PLANTING
Planting of BARE-ROOT
materials is at its peak. Roses head the list with fruit, nut, flowering and
shade trees a close second. Cane berries, rooted grape cuttings, wisteria,
flowering quince, forsythia and other spring-blooming deciduous shrubs are
also available at nurseries. Nursery people will be happy to advise you
regarding staking and support for trees and plants of your choice.
It's best to plant immediately upon arriving home from the nursery, but if you
can't, temporarily lay plants on their sides in a shallow trench and cover
with moist sawdust or soil (called heeling in). If you can't do that, have the
nursery put a sold tag on it and leave it there.
Plant pansies, primroses, violas and Iceland poppies. Other ANNUALS will
flower just as early if you wait until February to set them out. Make the
first planting of GLADIOLUS corms.
In the VEGETABLE garden, plant bare-root perennial edibles such as artichokes,
asparagus, grapes, and cane berries. If the soil is dry enough, set out
nursery seedlings of broccoli and cauliflower. You can also plant onion sets
and seed potatoes and sow seeds of beets, carrots, leeks, lettuce, parsley,
peas and radishes.
If you want large gallon-size tomato plants to set out in March, start them
now and grow them in a bright and cool site.
Dr. Jim Baggett at Oregon State University has developed tomatoes that do
quite well in Humboldt's cool coastal areas, including a variety called Oregon
Spring and a paste tomato called Oregon Pride (Territorial Seed Co-available
at Pierson's). I'm trying a new variety from Burpee this year called Northern
Exposure. A couple of old standbys are Pixie and Early Girl, both with small
fruits. A good salad tomato is Early Cascade.
MAINTENANCE
Protect FROST-TENDER plants on
dry, still nights when it's clear enough to see stars. Move container plants
beneath overhangs; cover other plants with boxes or plastic. Remove fallen
LEAVES from lawns, low-growing heathers and groundcovers. Wet, matted leaves,
especially the large ones from plane trees and bigleaf maple, may cause small
plants to die back or turn brown.
PRUNING operations should be scattered over both January and February. Fruit
and nut trees should be done in January. Roses should wait until February to
prevent a chance of frost damaging new growth. Don't prune spring-flowering
plants until after bloom, including flowering trees (except cherries, which
are not pruned).
Cut above a bud facing the direction you want a branch to grow. Make smooth
cuts and don't cut into the main trunk's collar. Don't put
a thick covering on the cuts. Putting a 'Band-aid' on them
will make you feel good, but it may
protect bacterial and fungal growth on the inside.
Plants are very capable of sealing off the cut from
living tissues and even large cuts are best left alone.
It's OK to put a little black or brown paint on the cut to camouflage it.
E-mail humgardens if you have
specific questions or better yet, pick up a pruning guide at the Extension
Service on Humboldt Hill.
The main ROSE task this month is clipping all foliage and rotted buds from
climbing and bush plants, to help push them into dormancy. The clipped leaves
and any on the ground should be raked up and disposed of to eliminate insect
eggs and disease spores that may be wintering on them.
When the pruning is completed, all deciduous trees and shrubs, including
roses, should be dosed with a DORMANT SPRAY. Use what your nursery recommends,
or use Bordeaux solution, lime sulfur, or oil at winter strength. Choose a
clear, wind-free day, and if possible wait until the early morning dew has
dried. Apply the solution to the branches and the trunk, making sure you get
it into all the crevices. Apply it also to the ground underneath the plant or
tree. Sprays are ineffective if rain falls within 24 hours of the application.
Fertilize actively growing annuals, including vegetables.
Feed CITRUS trees this month and again in February. Apply an acid fertilizer
to RHODODENDRONS and AZALEAS.
If you had CRABGRASS or other weed problems in your lawn last year, apply a
pre-emergent herbicide toward the end of the month. To tackle those big
perennial weeds, use a small spray bottle and put a squirt of Roundup on them.
Wait to plant grass seed until warm weather is definite.
Have the lawn mower tuned up and sharpened and see that other tools such as
trowels, spades and hoes are clean and sharp.
WINTER BOUQUETS
Humboldt's winter gardens can
yield a surprising array of materials for pleasing and imaginative indoor
arrangements. You can create wonderful evergreen bouquets that may include no
flowers at all - just buds, berries, fruits, and seedpods. For a more floral
look, mix the winter bloomers listed below with evergreen foliage.
For the longest-lasting arrangements, choose mature foliage with waxy or
leathery leaves (soft new growth soon wilts). You may have to freshen them
with new berries or flowers, which foliage will outlast by several weeks.
Use the list here as your inspiration for planting this winter or spring, so
that next winter your garden will yield plenty of distinctive greenery,
flowers, and fruit. For additional specialties, check your local nursery.
FLOWERS... acacia, azalea, camellia, Christmas Heather (Erica canaliculata),
hebe, laurustinus, princess flower, sweet hakea, tea tree (Leptospermum 'Ruby
Glow')
FOLIAGE... camellia, citrus, conifers (including false cypress and juniper),
eucalyptus, grevillea, heavenly bamboo, hebe, hop bush, Japanese aucuba,
pittosporum, podocarpus, Viburnum davidii
BERRIES, BUDS, CONES, OR FRUIT... black alder (bare branches and cones),
citrus, conifers, cotoneaster, heavenly bamboo, holly, Japanese aucuba,
pittosporum, pyracantha, Viburnum davidii
POINSETTIA CARE
Okay, what do you do with that
thing after Christmas? It looked great for about six weeks but now it's an
embarrassment. Well, the best thing to do is toss it out. You are not likely
to be able to duplicate the conditions that the professional growers have at
their disposal, and besides, a nice new one next year is only a few bucks. But
if you really want a challenge and be able to boast to your friends, here it
is:
When the leaves begin to
drop, gradually give less and less water until the soil is almost dry and the
plant sheds all of its leaves. Then store the pot in a cool (55 to 65 degrees)
place, with or without light. Water only enough to keep the stems from
shriveling. When warm weather arrives outdoors, cut the stems back to a 4-inch
height. Repot, using new potting soil. (The tops can be rooted in moist soil
to make new plants; use pieces 6 to 8
inches long, inserted 4 inches deep and right side up). Sink the pot into the
ground in a sunny place outdoors. Water well all summer. Feed a complete
fertilizer once a month because it is a voracious feeder. You can prune up to
mid-July if you want to control the plant's height or induce branching so you
will have more (but smaller) bloom.
In autumn, before night temperatures become chilly, bring the plant indoors
and gradually to a sunny window. You may want to put it in a closet at night
because poinsettias set their buds at the time of year when nights are
longest. During October and early November, if it is kept in a room where
lights are turned on after sunset, it will be thrown off schedule.
Poinsettias are not poisonous, but their juice may be mildly irritating to the
skin or the stomach. They are in the Euphorbia family and are related to the
Crown of Thorns and also the Gopher Plants seen in the magazine ads (NEW
MIRACLE PLANTS REPEL GOPHERS! THREE PLANTS FOR ONLY $9.95 plus $3.75 shipping
and handling.....) and also growing wild in many areas here. The Gopher Plant
stems do have a poisonous, caustic milky juice; this juice needs to be kept
away from the skin and especially the eyes, since painful burns can result.
Conceivably the gopher would beat a hasty retreat after biting into this
plant.
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